Another Grows Back
by Mirasaurus
Summary: Tony is captured by unknown forces. When he finds Loki imprisoned as well, will they be able to put their differences aside and work together to escape and defeat their common enemy? Or will cutting off one head only cause another to grow back? Rating may go up in the future.
1. Prologue

**AN: **Hello, everyone. For fans of my other frostiron story, I'm very sorry I haven't updated that one in such a long while. My life it a bit of a snag, and I got the world's worst case of writer's block. ie: about a thousand other stories were floating around in my head demanding to be written. This is one of them. I hope you all enjoy it, new readers as well as old. I hope to actually keep this updated semi-regularly, as well as picking up ILWAC again.

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**Another Grows Back **

Prologue

It had been one year since the battle against the Chitauri and Loki, and for the most part the world had been quiet. Far too quiet for Tony's liking. The only problems the Avengers had faced had been the result of minor villains, hardly worth a single member's time let alone the entire team.  
With no new evil to fight, Tony often found himself thinking back to his battle of wits with Loki. Despite the fact that he knew he should have feared and resented the god for attempting to flatten his city and conquer his planet, but somehow he only found the trickster fascinating. It was a rare person that could match his intellect, and even rarer still one who could match his wit, and yet Loki had held his own against the genius on Both accounts.  
Suddenly, Tony's attention was snatched away from his memories of the god by JARVIS announcing an incoming call from Fury.  
Before Tony could try and avoid the conversation, Fury's lackeys had hacked into his com system (which had to have taken them hours).  
"We need you to check something out, Stark. Rogers is already on his way to the scene, but we need Iron Man as well."  
"Why should I? I think I like sitting on my ass doing nothing all day. Get one of your SHIELD goons to do it," Tony replied, trying his best to sound like a petulant five year old. He might have been bored to tears, but that didn't mean he was going to be Fury's puppet. Tony still hadn't forgiven him for trying to conceal information from him.  
"I'm afraid it's not that simple. The rest of the Avengers are off on separate missions. I need a hero, Stark. I'm sending the coordinates to JARVIS. I expect he'll ensure you get here."  
With that, The line went dead, and the silence was promptly filled by JARVIS's ever sarcastic voice.  
"I have the location, sir. It appears to be at one of the warehouses on the edge of the city. Shall I deploy the Mark VII or would you prefer to sit around feeling sorry for yourself?"  
"I swear, one of these days I'm going to sell your motherboard for scrap. Fine, deploy."  
At the engineer's command, the Mark VII leapt from its case and enclosed itself around Tony's body, locking on to the bracelets he'd gotten into the habit of wearing at all times. You never know when you're going to be thrown from the top floor of a skyscraper by an angry god with Tony's lifestyle. Better safe than dead.  
Once the suit was fully assembled his HUD flared to life and Tony launched out of a window that had automatically opened upon the Mark VII's activation and flew off.  
When he arrived, Steve was already there waiting for him outside.  
"Any idea what the pirate wants us here for?"  
"Apparently there's so strange energy readings coming from inside. Gamma rays, among other things. I think SHIELD's worried about someone trying to make another Hulk."  
"Great. Last thing I need's another green rage monster tearing apart New York."  
"Sir, the energy signature is on the move. I suggest you postpone this conversation," JARVIS interrupted from the suit's external speakers.  
The two men nodded to each other silently before Tony launched back into the air and Steve approached the warehouse, shield at the ready.  
At the same time, Steve kicked down the rusted metal door in front of the warehouse while Tony blasted his way through the roof near the back, both of them charging in ready to take on whatever foes they found inside.  
Once the dust from Tony's entrance had settled, the two Avengers found themselves all alone in the dilapidated structure, with only a few shattered crates and rusty beams for company.  
Suspecting some kind of trap in the first place, Tony tentatively started moving across the room in the direction that his scanners were telling him was the source of the gamma rays. Nestled behind some rotting shards of wood, the engineer found a small, shiny metal sphere with a blue light on top.  
"Tony, wait. Maybe you shouldn't just go messing with-" Steve tried to warn, but it was too late. Without a second thought Tony pressed the light and the sphere opened up, releasing a shock wave strong enough to knock both Avengers unconscious.  
The last thing Tony saw through his flickering HUD was figure dressed in black and green standing over him before everything went black.

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**AN: **aaand, that's a wrap! I'm going to be posting ch. 1 right away so you're not left with just two pages of juicy cliffhanger. Please don't forget to review, they make me happy, and happy makes me write. :) Also, if anyone has a less stupid title idea, go ahead and offer it up. Titles are not my strong suit. _


	2. Chapter 1

**Another Grows Back**

**Ch. 1  
**

Tony came to with a groan, his head throbbing. He reached up to check for bleeding but froze the moment his hand came in contact with his hair. Didn't he pass out with the suit on?

Immediately his eyes flew open and he leapt to his feet. For a moment he thought he was in complete darkness before his eyes adjusted to the gloom. When they had, being able to see didn't do anything to stop his growing anxiety. Tony found himself in an empty concrete cell, only seven feet square with the only light source being a small gap beneath the door and his own Arc Reactor. Flashbacks of Afghanistan flooded his mind as he frantically clawed at the door and walls.

"Would you stop that sniveling, Man of Iron? Some of us are trying to sleep," Came a haggard yet familiar voice from the back corner of the cell.

Immediately Tony froze and turned slowly to face the voice's owner. "Loki? Of course you're behind this! Where am I? Where's Steve?"

"Clearly you are not as intelligent as you make out to be, Stark, if you fail to realize that I am as much a prisoner here as yourself," the god hissed from where he was slumped against the wall on the floor. Loki was stripped of his usual armour, but the plain linen tunic and trousers he was wearing were clearly Asgardian. His hair was even longer and more wild than when Tony had last seen him, and his eyes still held that feral madness that was trademark Loki.

All the same, the trickster didn't seem to be interested in attacking him, and the presence of another person went along way to calming Tony's nerves. Loki was no Yinsen, but he was certainly better than being alone.

"Ok... I'll bite. How did you end up in here?"

"I was captured, same as you," Loki growled. Tony made a face when it became obvious he wasn't going to continue, and the god sighed and gave in, wanting the mortal off his back as quickly as possible.

"I had finally managed to make my escape from the prison those Asgardian fools put me in and returned to Midgard to exact my revenge on you and your ridiculous world. Some days after my arrival a group of men broke into my temporary home and activated some kind of device that rendered me unconscious. I awakened here, and have not been able to call my magic since. I had thought they were members of your... what was it? SHIELD? However, your arrival has somewhat ruined that theory."

"The same thing happened to me. The Captain and I got a call from Fury - you remember Fury, the angry man you had Barton shoot? Holds a grudge? Doesn't know how to take a joke? - anyway, he told us to go to this warehouse on the outskirts of the city because they were getting strange energy readings and bam!"  
While Tony told his story, Loki merely nodded slowly, staring at the opposite wall. When he had finished, those feral eyes roamed back up to him and the god said cooly, "They're after the Tesseract."

"How could you possibly know that?" Tony scowled doubtfully.

"Please, Barton told me everything about your little team. They've also got your Captain, the man out of time, whoever _they_are. What else could they possibly want from the four of us?"

"I have to get out of here. If they're after the Tesseract there's only one group we could be up against, and -" Suddenly, Tony's sentence was cut short by the door flying open and a blinding light pouring into their cell. When his eyes adjusted, he saw a man dressed in black pointing a gun in his face and screaming at him in German, a Hydra insignia sewn on his sleeve.

Another man was dragging Loki to his feet, grabbing the god's arm and yanking on it savagely. Loki let out pained gasp and lashed out at man like a caged animal, kicking him in the gut and throwing him across the tiny cell with his right arm while his left held a huge gash down the side that had been facing the wall. The Hydra hit the wall with an audible crunch and crumpled to the floor. Before he could pounce on the other man he turned and shot Loki twice in the shoulder, slamming the butt of his rifle into his jaw for good measure.

The god snarled at the man as he slumped back against the wall, his venomous glare promising the Hydra agent a creative death.

Two more agents filed into the cell, one dragging away the body as the others restrained Tony and guided him out of the cell.

They as good as dragged Tony through one concrete hallway after another, each one identical to the last. _'No wonder they didn't bother with a blindfold,' _Tony thought as they made yet anther turn, _'I wouldn't have been able to remember the way even without this headache.'_

Suddenly the guards came to a stop just outside a large set of metal doors, one releasing his grip on the engineer to heave them open.

Tony decided to take the chance, suddenly twisting his arm out of the agent's grasp. However, Tony's reaction time was still slowed by the effects of whatever they had used to knock him out. Before he could make it more than a couple feet away, the agents had him again, and he got a vicious kick to the stomach for his trouble.

His vision filled with black specks, and the next thing he knew they were throwing him to the concrete floor, giving him another solid kick for good measure.

When he could breathe again, he looked up from the floor to see he had been tossed at the feet of a woman dressed in Hydra green, her long black hair covering the right side of her face. Despite the danger, he found his thoughts dragged back to his godly cellmate.

"Hello, Tony Stark," the woman said, her thick Russian accent drawing him back to the present. "I hope you won't be trying a stunt like that again. I need you alive an well, and my boys can be rather... creative with their punishments."

"Well then maybe you should have raised them better," Tony grumbled, picking himself up off the floor despite the pain it caused him. He may be a prisoner, but he was still Tony Stark. He had a reputation to uphold.

The woman laughed darkly, reminding him again of Loki. "This can go two ways, Stark. Either you co-operate, or you don't. If you choose to make this difficult for me, then I will in turn make it very, very difficult for you."

"And what exactly am I intended to co-operate with?"

We want what is rightfully ours. What your soldier took from us. Your cellmate knows where it is, and you know how to get it back."

"So let me get this straight. You expect me and _Loki_, crazy, world-conquering, mind controlling, kneel-before-me Loki, to work _together_, I help _you _get your hands on what could well be the most dangerous object in the universe?"

"Yes. You get it for us, and help us rebuild the weapons I powered, and you may keep your life."

"And what if I refuse?"

"It would be wise not to."

Tony laughed at this, the woman scowling. "Clearly you haven't done your homework, lady. I've got a record of refusing when people kidnap me, stick me in a cell, and order me to build weapons."

"We are not the Ten Rings, Stark. I think you will find it much more difficult to fool us."

"I guess we'll have to see," she grinned menacingly. "Boys, return him to his cell. Lets see if his tune changes after he's spent some quality time with our other guest."

"Yes, Lady Viper. Hail Hydra!"

_'So that's their plan?' _Tony thought as the Hydra agents dragged him back the cave. _'No, cell. Not a cave. I'm not in a cave. I'm just... surrounded by stone, probably underground, and being forced to make weapons. Fuck. Keep it together, Tony. Steve's down here... somewhere. If I can just get to him and away from Loki, I'll be ok. Maybe if I can get away from these guards, maybe some kind of diversion...'_

Before he could finish planning a means of escape, they were back at the cell. The door was opening, and then he was falling, falling, falling into the darkness. Into a cave in Afghanistan, only this time, there was no Yinsen. There was no pile of scrap. There was no hope of escape. There was only Loki.


End file.
